Last Adolescence
by Musing Joplin
Summary: Occurring right after R2 turn 19 and in Kallen's POV. Contemplation, angst, bitterness and conclusions. What must it feel like, being apart of game you didn't want to play? Kallen x Lelouch x C.C. triangle.


**Author Notes: **This was intentionally called _Last Adolescence_ after the OST. It was going to be fairly short and was intended to be multi-chaptered (Up to Turn 22 or 23). However, it ended up buried for a long time (reasons being strictly that I hadn't had the heart to continue after seeing that ending).

**Summary: **Occurring right after R2 turn 19 and in Kallen's POV. Contemplation, angst, bitterness and conclusions. What must it feel like, being apart of game you didn't want to play? Kallen x Lelouch x C.C. triangle. (Kallen x Lelouch dominated).

**

* * *

**

**A Romantic**

"_You fools, you were just now realizing that you were all my pawns?"_

_.  
_

It's funny... how sensitive we all became to the point, it was really sad. I'm still shaking how an insult from Zero followed us like shadows. What I don't get, is how we all easily turned our backs to the man of miracles. A leader that, time and time again, showed us that miracles can happen. But in two hours, there they were...

Aiming countless barrels at Lelouch and I, his last subordinate. I was willing to die with him, in the name of him. My moral compass was never clear and I'll admit that. However, for once, nothing had felt so clear to me when I spread out my arms ready to sacrifice myself for him. I was sure that this time, I was in the right.

But Lelouch mocked me. I was his _elite pawn_.

_"It was all a big chessboard. It was all a game."_

The small lab room was crowded with all the superiors of the Black Knights, all the ones who were with us since the siege of the palace, the day when I found out Zero's true identity: the Black Prince of Britannia, Lelouch.

"He was using us after all," Ougi slammed his fists on the table.

Diethard, unimpressed, remarked sourly, "For someone planning to betray Zero twice, it took you only now to finalize that conclusion?"

Had things been that chaotic?

I whipped my head around. "Twice...Ougi?" I asked out of sheer surprise. Before I was captured by Xing-ke, everyone was following behind Lelouch proudly.

All the senior officers in the small room lowered their heads. Even Rakshata at the other end of the room pouted, eager to listen to Ougi wriggle his way out of this one.

"Kallen..." he started guiltily, "a lot's happened..."

He was patronizing me. No one else in the room was speaking, and a few of the other pilots solemnly held their heads down. They were glaring at the floor determinedly. The stress and hatred they felt for Zero felt tangible. But I realized... that maybe Ougi wasn't patronizing me as he was himself. He couldn't even explain to me what happened. He acted as if I would degrade it all. He didn't even give me enough credit that Lelouch also hurt me as Lelouch hurt him.

The maps on the monitors blinked every other ten seconds, and all of us could hear distant orders through the tempered glass.

All of our prides were hurt, and like me, we each had difficulty to put any of it into words.

Toudou intervened the silence. "Lelouch's power was deception. We were disposable soldiers, kept in the dark, baiting us with the hope that Japan could've been liberated. He was a villain among knights. Lelouch ordered a massacre."

Ougi half-heartedly commented, "He ordered the slaughter of innocent people and didn't even blink."

Tamaki smugly finished with tears in his eyes, "I can't believe he had us think we were knights of justice."

"I'm sure there's more to the story..." I said, still unsure myself.

Ougi firmly pressed his hands on my shoulders, "No, Kallen. It's time we realize and accept that things are just as simple and cruel as they are. Lelouch was toying with us. We are all that's left for Japan! And no one will help us, but ourselves!"

"You're damn right!" Tamaki roared but no other veteran Black Knight so much as moved.

"But I..." With no ambition for arguing, I let my response die in my throat. I wasn't confused so much as I was irritated. They made it sound like war was simple, child's play, uncomplicated. If I had learned anything from Lelouch or Zero, it was that nothing worth winning was simple. Nothing was Black (Black Knights) or White (Brittania).

Chiba sidetracked reminiscently, "I can't believe Lelouch had the audacity to admit he was using us, insulting people ready to gun him down."

Diethard cocked his head to the side, bringing his hands together hovering over his chest. Obnoxiously, in that theatrical voice...

"The man _**was **_**Zero**."

It was strange, how a man like Lelouch, who wore masks and lived them so masterfully was suddenly reduced to a simple persona, and how a simple statement was enough to explain any action he would take. It almost made me scoff, but I settled with glaring down at the tile floor.

Rakshata pursed her lips, kissing the tip of her pipe, finding the discussion extremely distasteful. Infamous in her curtness, she commented in a beautiful laconic fashion. "Would you all mind leaving my lab, now? Unlike the rest of you, _I_ have work to do."

"Hey! That's right!" Tamaki whined, "...What _are_ we gonna do now! What are we _supposed_ to do, now!"

Everyone was disquieted, and it seemed that we let Zero do all the thinking, and now that he was gone 'cold-turkey'... we were incapable of any ideas ourselves.

Tamaki barely gave the silence a chance to stricken any more of the depleted spirit of the group and immediately jumped toward Ougi with pumped fists. "Hey! Ougi, you're the new commander! What do we do now!"

Ougi flinched at the sudden mention of his name. "You want me to-?"

The solemn silence rose again at the thought of Ougi being the new leader and to be honest, I too, felt the lack of confidence in his leadership. I was sure he could see it the way I curled by fists.

"I-" Ougi started, indignant by the lack of support tinted within the room but he also faltered.

Diethard inhaled, bored by the unimpressive terrorist. "This could very well be the end to the Black Knights without a _proper_ leader."

I felt that pang of apprehension. It was true in a way... no one here was a leader. That was why we clung to Zero for as long as we did. It was insulting! What does that say for our skill? It would only mean that Lelouch's words were real! Without a chess master, the facade boiled away to the rancid core that we were truly were only pawns in the royal family's game. I refuse to think we were as helpless as Lelouch thinks we are! I had to say something, if no one else will.

"Di-!"

Ougi emotionally erupted, "No! The Black Knights will deliver Japan! We have come so far, yet we still haven't liberated ourselves from the empire!"

For as long as I could remember, Ougi was always second-in-command... with Naoto, with Zero.

"Ougi?"

He patted my shoulder and marched to the center of the room, boasting, "We have a job to do! The Black Knights won't rest till we can call Japan our own, again. All we've been doing is filling out the agenda of a pompous prince! And now, all that stands between us and freedom!- is Lelouch. We find him! And trade him for Japan!"

Most of the people in the room chanted with cheer. For a moment, it seemed like I was in some movie. They all jumped around and I was staying still. They were all shouting like it was a battle cry.

"But wait," I accidentally muttered weakly, it was barely louder than the beeping of the radars posted in the room when I meant to shout it. Japan was for sale for the price of one man? The idea was ridiculous.

Tamaki bolted out of his seat, "YEAH, that's MY BUDDY!"

Ougi smiled.

Rakshata taunted, "Nice speech, _commander_..."

Villeta poised a hand over Ougi's. Taking it all in, I found that I really couldn't say much. They had all changed so drastically without me. They weren't on my level anymore. I surrendered to it. Maybe this was how C.C. felt...

"Yeah..." I found myself carelessly complimenting. "We're home-free, aren't we?"

Ougi stared at me with a concerned smile.

* * *

_"Kallen... live on."_

The sun was now setting, and a good few hours passed. I posted myself like a lazy doorman, leaning against the door to Zero's former office.

I kept thinking about how fast everything crumbled. Nothing good did ever did last for me, why should now be any different? Before, all I felt was the honor, the honor to serve a man like Zero. When I'd just wait for his orders, everything would turn around! Nothing was impossible any more.

Hardly anyone could ever realize_ that _feeling where you _knew_ that you were doing something to change the world. It was that feeling, where you know your life was actually a key role in how history will play that made me admire Zero.

But then, I was slowly losing myself when I was realizing that Zero-... that Lelouch, didn't feel the same way.

Immediately, I convinced myself why. Because _he_ wasn't trying to change the world. He was playing a game_. It was all a game_.

I never hated someone so much. I downright despised him.

With a nostalgic expression, I strode into the room. But then I there I was, catching myself exercising that detestable habit… searching the room, half-expecting to see Lelouch with his legs crossed and wearing a contempt frown. It's only been ten hours since the mutiny, and already, I was expecting to see him sitting there plotting deviously like the true prince of war.

Switching my weight from leg to leg, I glared back and forth across the room till I found the television, reporting about the newest 'valley' in Japan's soil. To think I was trying to fake that it was the T.V. I was searching for all along.

"C.C. has anything come up about Zero?"

But when I looked at her, I froze. C.C. was sliding her hand up the shelve wall, innocently attempting to hide her face from my view. I had forgotten that the woman I knew no longer existed.

"Um, C.C.?" I _over-kindly _asked. "You can come out, you know… it's just me."

She couldn't even look me in the eye longer than five seconds, let alone speak. She was physically showing me her submission like a slave. I never thought it would've been so hard for me to see her so timid. Where we once gave each other articulate glances, were now testing gestures.

I couldn't have been that intimidating …could I? My God, what did she do to herself?

"C.C.?" I tried one last time. But, I didn't really care if she responded me or not.

At least I got an answer this time: she fled into the closet behind her.

Why did everything have to be confusing? I felt like I was talking to a damn animal! I had to subject my every movement to harsh microscopic gentleness.

Sighing weakly, I took the plummet onto the red cushions of the damn futon. Letting my head drop as if I didn't have the strength to lift it anymore-sitting there, challenging the lights at a staring contest. I didn't realize that I took the same position as Lelouch did when he was replaying the moments of Nunnally's death in his mind.

At that point, all I was thinking was, what could've happened to her and Lelouch when I was gone. When she lost her memory, and how Lelouch coped. He seemed genuinely hurt after he lost Nunnally, genuinely guilty for all that had happened. Why did she change and how…?

Knowing those two, it couldn't have been just a hard bump on the head like _normal_ people.

_She_ was impassive, ethereal, always unimpressed, and infuriating to hell. It always seemed like she was so tired. She'd make you feel like she met a million of you. As depressing as it was, I knew it was probably true. Just being in her presence, I felt…like, I felt like I had to muscle my way just to stare eye-to-eye to her. There was no way she was normal.

And _He… _he was worse.

He was an unreadable, lying patricidal bastard. A strategist and commander with his hands up to the line of his armpits, dripping in blood. And yet, not a girl didn't swoon for him. Everyone-I mean everyone!-could imagine _him_ being the protagonist in a romance novel _even_ though he was nothing like it. They must've lost every grip on reality! And I bet he couldn't even kiss a girl and _feel something_ …something!-anything! I'm still not sure if he _can_ even _feel_. Let alone love.

My train of thought was just flashing by me and gone like fairy dust… Just a minute ago, I was remarking at how lost he seemed to be and in the next, accusing him of being inhuman. How could someone make you think of them in such different perspectives?

…_They_ were anything but_ normal_…

Even after all this... He was no romance hero. Hardly.

He was murderer, and a black prince. He was Zero.

But was it ridiculous for me to want to know...

What he thought of me?

Faintly, I heard the closet door ease open. Knowing that C.C. probably didn't want to be noticed, I pretended I didn't know she was there. She inched out from behind the door, still clinging to the door frame. And who would've known?

.

"Lelouch."**... **"Master."

We were unconsciously bonding.

.


End file.
